Film Reviews by AB

A slow burner of a film - like a fire, it starts as nothing and then builds encompassing things that seem to be out of range of the theme. Of course, the acting is spot on - characterisations are true to genre and Mark Rylance is at his superb best, with acting ability, diction and nuance. As others have said, this is Hitchcockian in style, but for modern influences. Be warned that you have to concentrate to keep hold of names and what the actions and decisions and logic have on the characters and groups and interactions in the scenario but this is one of the best films that I have seen for many a year with MR doing his usual fantastic job - one of these rarities in modern film and theatre: someone who can actually act by making the audience believe that the character is as per script, and is not labelled 'actor' because that what they decide to write in their passport (qv the number of vacuous personnel who stand in front of a camera or audience and talk but who could be Alexa or Siri or a brick with the belief that they convey). WATCH THIS

The storyline you can glean from a multitude of sources, and some production interpretation may come into play here, but the 'stuff you lot out there' attitude of the main character is what I love the best - let anyone who wants to , let them follow their dreams. Who is to say that his sons would not have become world disco champions (as they did) without some influence from their father? I would like to think that his own dreams, his own influence and his attitude drove them on to achieve their goal.

A very British, quirky, poignant film that perhaps should be used in psychology lectures or sports coaching courses about using your own psyche. Made me quite tearful at the credits as it showed that the family made themselves a world-wide name through use of their own actions, support, ability [and lack of] with their family dynamic and interaction, especially given the dead-end lives that everyone was destined for at the time and in the location

Very highly recommended

I like Westerns - always have done but this one, for a labelled 'classic' is, to me, nothing of the sort - nothing especially stands out to make it any different/ground-breaking/surprising from a multitude of others of the genre. Burt Lancaster gets his over-whitened teeth set in a rictus smile most of the time and gets to show off his circus skills as per usual in a scene (look up his background) but this ended up simply being a routine 'watch' and one that I can tick off as having seen. Gary Cooper is his usual laconic type and acts as the part demands, but BL seems to be taking it too seriously, trying to show that he is the 'baddie', not to be trusted. Nice to have the historical situation explained at the start to lend a background to what is going on

Given it two stars (even though that means "didn't like it", which is a bit over the top/below the belt?) of my opinion but couldn't quite give it 3 stars ("Liked it"). A 2.5 stars rating really

Quite awful film, too reliant on CGI, an obvious and poor storyline, a pool of average OTT acting and unbelievable outcomes.

Q: Why in these films are humans, when knocked about by androids, do not suffer any concussions, broken bones or serious internal injuries? When the main 'character' (loose description) yells "OW" when punching a rock (don't ask) but when kicked about like a football in a one-on-one takes it on the chin (or ribs, legs, arms, body ...) and gets up as if nothing has happened?

Only watch if you have nothing to do in your life (like shampooing the goldfish, washing the apple tree or vacuuming the lawn)

I still cannot fathom in my own mind why I ordered this - someone, somewhere must have been drunk enough to recommend it in a review, which I believed.

OK - the storyline is predictable but the playout is enjoyable. Nicolas Cage is his usual underrated self but plaudits must be given to Ryan Kiera Armstrong playing his daughter: will go places, as an actress with confidence at such a young age, especially if she continues to use those eyes to convey feelings as she does here. Glad to see that the suggested twisted murder of the wife was not gone into detail but was left to the imagination - if only other recent films would learn that lesson of the mind. As a lover of westerns, I liked this film and would recommend it to you.

To my mind, a mess of a film with too many psychological angles in it to be a worthwhile story - even the reveal is done in a scene that lasts no more than 30 seconds by my reckoning and even then is done with a 'this is what it is' attitude. If the film is so deeply mind-blowingly different, then take a bit longer to explain to us mere humans what the whole lot is *supposed* to be about and how the plot is supposed to exist - who exists where and how and how they got there - are they really 'there' or is it all illusionary?

As a mere human male, perhaps the whole psychological fem-dram things passes me by but I could only re-watch this to try and find some new if some explanation was a bit more forthcoming.

very good drama played out mainly via the legal procedures and courtroom but do not let that distract you as to how watchable this film is. Cruise is as annoying as ever (and he not one of my favourite actors) as his character always seems to have the upper hand and be the sole driving force of the defence team (isn't Demi Moore supposed to be the senior officer here?) but the unravelling on what actually went on in the story is well structured and how he goes about extracting that information is a typical lawyer sequence of thought processes and actions. Well worth a watch

Boringly predictable in every scene with no tension, deviation nor originality in a storyline that has been played out 100 times before in cinematic history. A waste of effort simply to watch it - even the fight scenes were overplayed and unrealistic, reminding me of David Carradine from the TV series "Kung Fu" - camera work overrules real life

God know how the CP reviewer (see below) gave this 5 stars - I gave it 1 because there is no zero (and where did he get 'comedy' in this film? and words such as 'concept' and 'convention' guide you towards the reviewer's pretension which comes through in the total text of his love letter to Peele). And ignore the synopsis that goes with the film on this site - more hyperbole and mis-truths. The film is gibberish, more pseudo-sci-fi than sci-fi with the horses acting better than the humans. Too many holes in the story, too poor a mumbled dialogue, too confusing an ending, too gibberish with the non-sensical sub-story about a monkey that was really a time filler for this bizarre psychobabble that has no storyline, no plot, no point and would be an embarrassment for any of the actors to admit to on their CV. Jordan Peele seems to be one of these people that 'luvvie luvvers' like but to me he is someone that belongs in a psych ward somewhere being forced to watch pretentious rubbish like this on a never-ending loop. No, correct that as he would enjoy piffle like this - he should be made to watch decent films made by decent film makers to make him try to learn something about the industry, making notes with the crayons he is given

Full of fascinating facts and numbers far too big to comprehend or visualise, the science behind stars, elements, time [past and future] etc. is explained in such a way that makes you feel so insignificant as to be useless in the 'scheme of things'. Even as a scientist, I find some of the areas explained here as so wonderful and almost incomprehensible that I feel compelled to read about them in even more detail. Full of facts that you can quote to make you seem very erudite - eg the 'heat death' of the cosmos will happen in 10,000 [trillion *8] years. Such a brilliant programme that it makes me want to buy the book that goes with the series. My only complaint (too strong a word for such a trivial observation) is the 'modern' usage of the American billions and trillions without a statement to that fact, when those measure differ from the UK definitions by at least a thousand at its basic level. Not that something dying in thousands of millions of years when compared to millions of millions of years would help change anything here as the numbers are too large to convey any real meaning !

The premise was good - how to communicate with an alien species. The trouble is that not that much time was spent explaining the processes behind the 'learning' of the 'language' that they used.

[Confession here - review written after first watching. I then proceeded to Wikipedia to fill in the gaps of my observations of the film. Then re-watched it to see what I missed, which overall doesn't say much for the explanatory parts of the film's dialogue.]

I cannot see what all the fuss about Amy Adams' acting is - she was no better or worse than anyone else in almost any film that I have seen - it is what she does - act. I definitely didn't see much point of the character of Ian (Jeremy Renner) - he was supposed to be leading a team of physicists but they seem to do very little to no research into what was alien technology and he seemed to be there as an add-on (if necessary part) for the storyline. Ah yes, the storyline. The much-vaunted (see other reviews) third 'act' was [initially] confusing as to be an easy way out of an idea that had no idea what to do next.

[SPOILER: - as with another review that I wrote, qv 'Deja Vue', David Tennant and his 'timey wimey' came to my mind again here. Is it me? Or are film themes merging?]

Overall a missed opportunity to show how these things would work in real life - does such a team actually exist? Would be really interesting to know, given that communication may be non-vocal but by images/pictograms or even music (see Close Encounters of the Third Kind) but even as a sci-film film, and one who likes that genre, I found this disappointing and overrated.

I loved this - a real feel-good British film celebrating a success with humour and pathos. I hadn't heard of the story beforehand (only on a review in a paper, hence my rental) but this ranks up with the best horsey feel-good stories that bring a tear to the eye (certainly to mine). Think Seabiscuit and Champions and you are there.

[Trying not to give too much away here!]

An enjoyable little thriller with very little back story (but that is not needed anyway) and several twists to keep you awake, thinking and interested. A couple of holes in the story do not detract from the enjoyment.

Definitely worth a watch

Now the world has gone mad - the 'arty' psycho-babble influencers have crossed over to sci-fi, well, a poor pastiche of sci-fi. This offering is confusing, story-less and to be watched only to say that you have seen it to try and dissuade anyone else from ever going near this dreadful film. And who writes the synopses for the distribution jackets in CP? I would guess some out-of-work psychology graduate who makes up [and believes]phrases such as "captivating" and "visually-arresting" to try and convince we poor saps that a film is worth watching. This one isn't.

An idea that has been done many times before, in film and in TV and this was really no better (or worse). Main drawbacks were: the stilted conversations as foreign actors and actresses attempt to speak English - the plot lost a lot with that; and the dialogue was too echo-y when held in the barn where a lot of the 'action' takes place so really the sound track was the major failing of this film. Another of these confusing "time-loop paradox" films that requires a lot of concentration just to try and keep pace with, before attempting to unravel what is going on, why, when and where. Even the pig looked confused